Ultra Mallorca Serra de Tramuntana - 112km - April 19th

photo courtesy of mifotomallorca.com

KM45    It’s just before 5am. I have been running for as many hours as the day is long and I’m thinking about gherkins. I turn off the hard packed gravel and onto the tarmac. I put out my headlight and run by the moonlight that starts to draw me out of the inner place I have been locked into for the last few hours. Other senses come stalking back too. The wind brings a barmy, dusty kind of smell of the day’s heat still not quite rubbed out. The sloshing of the water bottles is smoothed out by the rhythmic footfall on asphalt and in this, the quietest, loneliest moment of the night, even laboured breathing seems an intrusion. I pace lightly and think about food.

The stillness is interrupted by a stop at the burningly bright aid station in the mountainous village, Valdemossa. By daytime, lycra clad roadies propping up their carbon steeds, sipping away on Espressos would be lining the streets. Now, however there is a hardness about the town. An urgency of hastily filled bottles as the harshness of floodlights burn away at the edges. There is no sitting down and little conversation.  I had been alone on the road but there are a few other runners here too, and we eye each other suspiciously- anxious that the right balance of jam sandwich ingestion and pickles is juggled without losing a place, and personal space, to slip out on to the trails again.

KM55   The day begins to bleed out the darkness at 6:31, just as I re-join the long distance footpath, the GR-221, at the mountain pass above Deja. I pick my way on tiptoes a km or so through the badlands of rock jumble that leads down from the summit to the treeline. Here I find 4 pirates at an impromptu race chip check station who shout  ‘caña, CAÑA!’ (fishing rod, FISHING ROD in the only Spanish I know) enthusiastically at me and I smile meekly, hoping, only vaguely, that there may be some kind of Rollmop delicacy awaiting me at the next aid station. Luxurious carpets of moss sweep down the mountainside now. The descent is so steep that the same moss that is at my feet, I can moments later run my hand through like a shag rug when I turn obliquely to follow the path as it convulses down the hillside. I turn my lamp out for good and the scent of pine resin rears up. Lower down still, I slow down respectfully to navigate more slowly at the point where I fell on a recce two days earlier. 10foot Bamboo shoots block the way, or seem to, but the rocks that stand proud and erratically from the path dance a way through.

Approaching the checkpoint at Cuber

KM 86   At 11:20 I look it in the eyes. I was running away from it all night and now, winding up the last hundred metres or so of coarse scree, I realise it’s here. There was only one gringo at 7 in the morning basting himself in factor 50 at the drop bag checkpoint, and the bead of creamy sweat that begins to irritate my eye is a precursor of what is to come. The other 400 Spaniards probably laugh in its face and are stretching out their ebony legs to full capacity like solar cells to the sun. But the oven timer has started for me now and I give myself two hours or so before complete meltdown.

KM 101 13:20 I follow a smooth, gently climbing sightseers road that weaves its way through olive trees and wild jasmine and lemon trees on the outskirts of Lluc. I haven’t seen another runner for nearly two hours and as I float dreamily along, occasional cyclists pass - smiling benignly.   Swaying patches of shade from oak and cypress wash across the road and make soothing hushing sounds in the breeze. There is a heaviness to my legs but no leadenness. I am tired but not in that discordant head lolloping and feet tripping kind of way. I am tired of concentrating and tired of having to stoke myself every fifteen minutes like some kind of ravenous coal fired locomotive. There are 11km left: just a couple of times round the university campus 5k course I tell myself and it’s all downhill. I open five energy gels, funnel each of them down the feeding tube like a foie gras duck on slaughter day and try to stride out.

KM 107 13:50   The foothills fall aside and the switchbacks of the last trail section relent. I pick up an event sign with ‘5k’ to Pollenca and the finish line signposted. The valley widens, yawing out infront to the East and the Mediterranean Sea. I pick up a runner who has slowed to a walk and try to put a spurt on as I pass him. We burble alongside an ambling brook that makes no rush of arriving in Pollenca. The shade is deep and I needn’t have worried so. Pollenca assembles itself around me in sandy pastel shades. As I pass the 500metres to go marker, I see a police motorbike parked next to two men drinking lager in the cobbled street from dainty beer glasses ripe with condensation. The bike pulls away. Drawing closer I ask the men, ‘Where do I go?’ and with their nods of instruction, I realise that the officer who is looking impatiently in her rear view mirror is my own surreal blue light escort to the finish line.

I am in 18^th place I learn from the announcer and am greeted by my wonderful family and girlfriend who have been there throughout to meet me at various points. I try to say something profound about how I feel in response to their questions but just feel thankful for it being over and grateful for their suppor,

And then, 24 hours later, as the airstrip bus turns an arc from West to East across the gaping panorama of the whole Tramuntana mountain range, I feel grateful for being able and fit of body to have indulged so deeply in it all.

 I was raising money in this race for Hand in Hand for Syria: an important refugee charity that is on the front line in dealing with the outbreak of Polio in the country. If you enjoyed this post, if you can, please give here http://www.justgiving.com/Matt-Maynard